


Sky

by yeaka



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek - Various Authors, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Gen, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-08
Updated: 2017-06-08
Packaged: 2018-11-10 21:42:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11135256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeaka/pseuds/yeaka
Summary: Decades later, Yoshi finds Sorahl again. (forStrangers from the Sky.)





	Sky

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This is based on Strangers from the Sky by Margaret Wander Bonanno and sadly won’t make much sense without it.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don’t own Star Trek or any of its contents, and I’m not making any money off this.

He’s much older now, of course, and that could contribute to the ache in his lungs, the heaviness of his bones, the complete lack of resistance to the cloying heat. But Vulcan seems unbearable at times, and that blistering desert air makes him wonder again and again: _how did they ever manage Antarctica?_ Yoshi remembers the endless snow, and guilt sinks further into him; he should’ve made the captain take them elsewhere, anywhere, but an entire continent of ice. 

Illogical, Sorahl would say. He and his mother could bear it, and they did, for the sake of human comfort. They underwent _so much_ for that feeble concept. And Yoshi never did enough to compensate. It’s his fault they were found in the first place. He should’ve just shut his mouth and enjoyed the company.

But that was years ago, and in the here and now, it all worked out well enough. Humans had enough and made their peace. And eventually, after far too many decades staring at the stars, Yoshi made his way here, standing in the yellow field, before a little white house with no markings on it anywhere. But it’s the right one. Yoshi’s as sure of that as he is his own mind, no longer lost in a vague fugue of wonderment. This is where he’s meant to be.

He lifts his hand to knock, though the scanners will announce his presence. It draws his attention to how wizened he’s become, the blue lines of veins too clear beneath his paling knuckles. The calluses of many hard days in the crops have finally faded, leaving behind only sandpaper skin. He wonders suddenly if Sorahl will have changed at all, or if he’ll still be as beautiful as he was when they first spoke together, huddled up in blankets through the night, and Yoshi had to fight off waves of jealousy from Tatya’s awe-struck gaze.

He wishes he’d been there to see Sorahl’s awe ate the first grains of earth. Hearing a recount is one thing, still satisfying after years of searching for that lost truth, but _being there_ is another.

A few moments pass, during which Yoshi sways on the doorsteps and wonders if he should finally accept a cane. He stood tall enough on Earth, but Vulcan’s heat compounds its gravity. Nevertheless, he knows he’ll never be going back.

Then the door finally opens, and _Sorahl_ is standing there. For a moment, Yoshi can’t seem to breathe. Sorahl is every bit as handsome in middle age as he was at a trim nineteen. He’s a little thicker now, filled out, perhaps a few centimeters taller. Whatever else lies forgotten, Yoshi remembers _him_ exactingly.

And Sorahl remembers him, for Sorahl’s passive face lights with the faintest flicker of surprise, visible only to the Vulcan expert that Yoshi’s become. He breathes, reverently quiet, “Yoshi.”

Yoshi answers, “Sorahl,” and finds a waver in his voice. After so much time spent searching, first for the memories and then for this one man, it almost doesn’t seem real.

Stepping on Vulcan didn’t, that first time. Even though he knew he belonged, aching lungs or no. He stares into Sorahl’s dark eyes, and he knows it for certain.

Sorahl asks only, “How?”

“That’s a long story,” Yoshi chuckles, honoured to have the answer still in his own tongue. He’s interrupted by a cough, stirred by desert sand.

Sorahl steps seamlessly aside. He bows his head as he promises, “You are always welcome in my home.”

And Yoshi goes in to stay.


End file.
